


The Art of Digging Holes.

by T J Feardorcha (MonsterTesk)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cause I don't, Essays, Grief, I am sure no one will read this, does anyone ever read the original things on here?, loss of pets, more whiny shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:06:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterTesk/pseuds/T%20J%20Feardorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because that’s what you do when you hold a little life in your hands; you fill it up with love and tenderness and soft touches until they give you a reason to dig a hole."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Digging Holes.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know why I'm posting this here. Maybe because I just want to share my grief. Who knows? Anyway. I'm gonna go sit on the porch.

My mom used to dig holes every year. They wouldn’t be pretty things or hard to spot. She’d find a place under the Manzanita next to our apartment and dig. It wasn’t technically part of the property we rented but it was close enough to us and far enough away from everyone else that no one minded. When she was done she’d paint oblong rocks with little designs and a name on them then set the rock at the head of where the hole used to be. Every day for weeks after she’d make the hole I’d walk past it on my way home and squint through the afternoon sun into the shade of the trees at the mounds of freshly turned earth. I always felt a sort of abstraction from the whole thing. Something would happen—a car usually—and mom would have to dig a hole. She never seemed sad about it. I remember when it was Murphy the cat my little brother didn’t cry. My dad thought the whole thing was an inconvenience from the looks of it. The first time there wasn’t a hole my older brother cried when he got the news. I was the first to know.

It was late at night and I had snuck downstairs for a drink but I didn’t get that far. As soon as he saw me, he whined. McCartney was on the rug we had that ran from the step down of the entry way and the kitchen. He looked up at me with fear in his eyes and yowled. I was scared, I didn’t want to get caught out of my room that late at night so I hurried out of the room and stood there, listening. He called after me. I couldn’t stay away. I’d never heard him sound like that.

So I crept back in and he scooted his way to me. It looked like he was trying to run away from his back legs. They weren’t moving, just trailing after him, tail flat and lifeless. McCartney made this hollow noise, looking up at me, his eyes round and wide. I reached out and touched his head, scratching behind his ears. He lay down after that and meowed again. I didn’t know what to do—I was just a kid and I’d never been the one to find them before – so I woke my dad (who had slept through McCartney’s cries like a baby not two feet away) then ran upstairs and woke my mom.

They took him to the vet and I went back to bed, worried but comforted that my parents were taking care of it. When my older brother came home from staying over at his friends there was no ceremony to it, no “we have to talk” or “I have some bad news” from mom or dad. Mom just walked up to him and said, “McCartney had a stroke. We took him to the vet but there was nothing they could do.” They both made comments like my older brother would like that his cat died high as a kite. I was revolted by this but decided they must know better how to deliver this news than I. After all, this was the first time I had discovered a reason for a hole.

But the hole never came. Two years later when Squirt, the turtle, died because of parasites there was no hole either. My dad just picked him up, put him in one of mom’s many shoeboxes, and tossed him in the trash. I felt as removed from it as I had when my mom dug the holes.

Today I dug my first hole. It was for Cecil who was white with a blond vest, shy, and liked to kiss my nose. I used to call him my fatty ratty, my mushmallow, my baby boy. Because that’s what you do when you hold a little life in your hands; you fill it up with love and tenderness and soft touches until they give you a reason to dig a hole.

The thing I didn’t know about digging holes is that there are choices you can make which will display your sentiments and your care (or lack thereof). My mom’s holes were always over-filled. She’d put all the dirt back in it until the ground bloated up over the bodies. She’d leave a visible mark where something once living was now decaying. She’d take a rock and paint it but always used water colors which meant the paint would fade then disappear, leaving only a lump of earth that would eventually erode away to subtle bumps. Cecil’s hole was not like that.

I borrowed a shovel from a friend. It had a long handle but a small head, just wide enough to make a good-sized hole. I looked around the backyard, I tried a few places. The ground is pretty hard this time of year so I tested the soil by pushing the shovel in and standing on it to see how long it took to sink below the grass and into the soil. I found a good spot by the chain link fence. It’s in the sun but near where a bush grows during the heat of summer. I framed my chosen spot by stabbing the earth, using my weight to sink the shovel into the ground. I made a rectangle half a foot wide and eight inches long then pushed the shovel back into the line. I put my boot on the back and pried until I got the grass up in one piece. I looked kind of silly, I know, prying up the grass like that. I’m sure Cecil would have loved it. Rats love to dig and play in grass.

After that I dug about a foot down, making sure to keep it in that geometric shape because I watch too much TV and they always dig these impossibly perfectly rectangular holes. Mine was less than perfect but I was pleased with it anyway. It was mostly rectangle at its entrance but belled like a hammock at the bottom. When I finished, I gathered up Cecil – now wrapped in the first sheet he ever destroyed (never leave rats unattended with your bedding as they will make it _their_ bedding)—and put him inside a fast food box that had once contained chicken. He loved chicken. It was the perfect size for him even with how bloated in death he’d gotten. The box went in the hole and I put back only half the dirt I’d taken out then flipped the square of grass I’d pried off back over and hit the ground until it lay flat.

The only way you can tell that I dug a hole today is the dark soil still sitting next to where it is and the small toy I placed at the head of it. The toy was Cecil’s favorite; a brightly colored ball made out of chewing logs with an actual wood ball in the center so it rattled when he rolled it. I thought he might like that. Though I wasn’t thinking of anything when I dug the hole. Before I thought about it; I debated the best place to put it, what box to use, where I could find a shovel, what time of day to do it, what to do after I dug it, whether or not I should get a rock like my mom used to do. But I never thought of a single thing except digging while I was making that hole. The first thing that came to mind when I was done, standing in the sun with a shovel over my shoulder and staring at Cecil’s grave, was “There’s an art to digging holes.” I have to wonder if my mom thought the same thing when she made her first hole. 

**Author's Note:**

> I need actual feedback on this. Like on my use of language and shit. Kthnxbai.


End file.
